The Italian Next Door. Anna Cleary

but if she could have painted him, the colours would have seared the page.

      ‘You see those little isles out there?’ She followed his gaze to where jagged fingers pointed from the sea, piercing the blue haze. ‘Remember Ulysses and the sirens who lured the sailors?’

      ‘That’s the place?’ She cleared the croakiness from her throat.

      ‘Yes. And just poking out from that corner of the cliff you see Capri.’

      ‘Oh,’ she exclaimed, her voice back to natural. ‘It’s beautiful.’ And she truly meant it. It was beyond beautiful. It was heaven.

      He angled himself to gaze at her and the sun found gold and amber glimmers in the depths of his eyes. ‘Better now?’ There was concern in his voice, and the lines of his chiselled, sensuous mouth were grave.

      ‘I’m fine, truly. I don’t know what happened. You shouldn’t have worried.’ She hardly dared look at him for fear of seeing the curl of contempt she’d once surprised on Euan’s mouth when she’d revealed her nervousness. ‘You were white.’

      She shrugged it off. ‘Oh, well, I’m probably overtired. I have been travelling for thirty-six hours. It’s only natural I should be a bit pale.’

      His eyes flickered to her mouth. ‘Not that pale. But you’ve improved a little. Now your lips are pink.’ He moved closer, touched them with his knuckle. ‘Like cherries.’

      Her heart made a deep lurch in her chest, and he bent and touched her lips with his, a gentle, exploratory friction. It took her by surprise, in truth. Her mad, pounding pulse took off, and she would have stopped the tingling kiss, she really would, except that her lips fell into a sort of divine enchantment. He pulled her close and her hands reached for his shoulders, his ribs, his thick black hair.

      Oh, the bliss of being held gently by a hard man. His peppery spice filled her head, and the taste of him, so masculine yet in some way unique, ignited her senses until she was drunk, and for seconds she came close to abandoning herself to his possession.

      He gathered her close to his lean solid body and kissed her with a sizzling, sexy, melting heat, titillating the insides of her mouth with his tongue, drugging her brain with the sexual narcotic and razing her to the ground.

      She sank into him, stroking him, her body thrilling to his arousing touch.

      His smooth hands slid to her breasts and a wild flame of desire flared up in her. Instantly she felt conscious of losing control. At the same time awareness of the implacable power of his big, steel-hard physique sent a choking panic jackknifing through her insides.

      She shoved at his powerful chest and broke free from his arms.

      ‘No, don’t,’ she said hoarsely, panting. ‘Not this.’

       ‘Cosa?’

      He was staring at her with a strange expression, as though seeing something unexpected in her face. It was infuriating, and she hastened to cover up whatever it had been.

      ‘I—I don’t want to be kissed, do you understand?’ She was breathing fast. Anger and arousal seethed with equal potency in her bloodstream. For God’s sake, what was she doing? Here she was with a perfect stranger on a hellish road in the middle of what looked and smelled like heaven on earth, and for a moment she’d actually come close to getting carried away and letting herself go.

      She must have lost her senses.

      Blinking as though stunned, he stared at her with eyes that blazed molten. ‘I did not—’ His voice was thicker and deeper than a Gulf Oil gusher. ‘I did not intend … This was just … I wanted to comfort you.’

      ‘Oh, to comfort me. Please.’

      A flush touched his lean cheeks. He said something intense in flowing Italian accompanied by a proud gesture that made it clear he felt stung by her accusation. The trouble was, even in her anger, those lilting, lyrical words, so eloquent of denial, expressed in his deep voice seeped into her bloodstream and threatened to undermine her.

      She hardened herself against them and said in a low voice, ‘I don’t need comforting. Anyway, this was not what I’d call comfort. This was a man taking advantage of a woman.’

      His head jerked back.

      The ferocity of her words surprised even herself. Since the bank incident, she’d taken care to avoid riling members of the opposite sex. As soon as her bold words escaped from her mouth her cowardly heart jumped into her throat and cringed.

      He stared at her, frowning, his eyes glittering. ‘I am not the sort of man who takes advantage of a woman.’ All at once his accent was very pronounced. ‘Holding you, kissing you even, seemed like a—a—natural response to your distress. I was intending merely to—soothe you.’

      The flush on his sculpted cheekbones deepened on those last words, as if he realised himself how lame they sounded.

      ‘Oh, that’s what they all say.’

      His eyes flashed. ‘Mio Dio, what sort of guy do you think I am?’ He made a small move in her direction, and despite her bravado an involuntary lurch in her guts drove her back a step.

      Shock smote his tense, handsome face and he held up his hands. ‘Pia … You have no need to feel afraid. I am a civilised man, perdio. I do not assault women. Far from it.’

      ‘I’m not afraid,’ she said sharply, though in fact her blood was thundering in her ears and she was trembling like an aspen. ‘Just—disappointed, that’s all. I have had a long, long trip. You’re a total stranger and I’m not in any mood to be kissing anyone.’ Her voice wobbled on the last word, to her utter shame.

      But his assurances on the assault issue began to sink in. She started to feel less severely threatened, and as her confidence rose the strength of her anger intensified, and her need to express it.

      ‘You shouldn’t have assumed I wanted to kiss you.’

      ‘Okay, okay …’ He threw up his hands, muttering in melodic Italiano then switching to English. ‘You don’t need to explain.’

      ‘I’m not explaining.’ And she wasn’t, not really. It was just that she felt all wound up and needed to vent her feelings. ‘I’m—mortified that you think I’m the sort of woman who would encourage such … such … free and easy.’ She made a wordless gesture.

      ‘Kissing.’

      ‘As if any time a man finds a woman on a lonely road he should seize the opportunity. As if this is what I was cut out for. To be kissed by a man. Any man who feels like it, any old tick of the clock. All right, Pia, I like the look of you so I’ll kiss you. As if I should enjoy …’

      He’d been listening with close attention, but at that his black lashes swept down to conceal a sudden gleam in his eyes. ‘And yet for a few moments there I had the distinct impression you did enjoy. You were so very, very responsive. When I held you in my arms I could feel the thrill rippling through your vibrant body. I can feel it still, in my arms, all through my body, all the way to my bones.’

      It was her turn to flush. Her conscience pricked, and to make matters worse the very nature of the words he’d used were in some way arousing.

      ‘Oh, rubbish.’ She gave a cool, angry laugh and turned away to hide her burning cheeks. ‘There was no thrill. The only thing rippling through me was anger.’

      She started to walk across the clearing towards the car. She felt all raw inside, as if she were in the wrong somehow and had treated him unfairly, when all the time he was the one who had kissed her. She supposed if the case made it to court he’d accuse her of flirting with him on the journey.

      But what was flirting, after all? A binding contract?

      He caught up with her and said stiffly, ‘I’m sorry to have distressed you, Pia. If I